Your Morning Dump... Where the Sixers got hit in the face with the wet smelly fish of playoff reality

Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big story line. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.

Tonight, the Sixers have to take off their plush slippers and comfy robes and put on work boots and hard hats. They have to deal with a crowd that will drown out their coach. They have to deal with an energy that has a tendency to suck players in and play faster paced hero ball in an effort to “shut them up.”

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The Sixers will get a shock to start the game. They will be hit like they haven’t been hit in a long time. They will feel things they haven’t felt in ages. It will be very different that anything they’ve been used to.

Maybe they’ll still be good enough to get past Boston. They have a ton of talent and their roster is built to complement their top stars.

But they won’t win without feeling it. There’s no cruising anywhere in this series. And if their youth betrays them, the Celtics will soon be changing a lot of minds.

Red’s Army

Here at Red’s Army we don’t quote ourselves in the morning dump very often. But when we do, it’s because one of our guys got it right. And not just right, but really really right.

A couple weeks ago your humble scribe wrote this about the Sixers/Heat series:

I think Miami is going to punch them in the nose in game one, and the Sixers are not going to recover.

This is an incredibly young team that, up until about a month ago, did nothing but lose. They have nobody on their team that has the slightest idea what a seven game playoff series feels like. They have nobody on their team that knows how to finish off another team.

This ain’t college. This ain’t shoot out of the gate and hold on tight for the second half and squeak out a win, survive and advance.

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And they’re matched up against a coach with two rings, and a team that knows what the playoffs are like.

Your humble scribe should’ve done his homework. Miami is no longer a team that knows what the playoffs are like. Their playoff veterans are basically the ghost of Dwyane Wade and Kelly Olynyk.

So it’s up to Boston to deflate this balloon.

Boston is also a young team; and we’re going to see some stretches of really ugly ball from them in this series. We’ve all got to come down a wee bit from last night’s high.

But in the end, the Sixers quite truthfully haven’t seen anything like this, and that’s going to make a difference in this series.

Page 2: Where the Celtics deployed a secret weapon

I’m here! Let’s go @celtics @NBA @tdgarden @NBAonTNT pic.twitter.com/LbA0lvArWn

— TheBillRussell (@RealBillRussell) May 1, 2018

Bill knows a bit about beating the Sixers, and beating Philadelphia teams in general.

The GOAT beat the Philadelphia Warriors in 1958, 1960 and 1962. He also beat the Sixers in 1965, 1966, 1968 and 1969.

For good measure, that guy up there with the contagious cackle also beat the Syracuse Nationals in 1957, 1959 and 1961–before they moved to Philadelphia and changed their name.